Idiopathic: Idiotic Sociopath
by shaemichelle
Summary: None of these symptoms make sense. Some of them point to drugs, others to blood disorder, others still to autoimmune. With negitive tests and a clean tox screen, House might be in serious trouble, with or without a diagnosis for his mysterious illness.


(Disclaimer: The HOUSE MD franchise is one that I do not own or claim. It was created by David Shore and its rights are owned, exclusively or otherwise, by Fox Entertainment and/or its shareholders and mother/sister companies.)

* * *

"Did you lose weight?" Cameron asked. House limped into his differential room, throwing a file on the glass table. His leg was acting up, probably because he'd slept on the couch. His shoulder was hurting as well, enough that he couldn't lean on his cane when he mocked his team today. He hung his jacket up, moving to his desk.

"Been on Rachel Ray's new diet. Thanks for noticing," he responded. She glared at him as Foreman opened up the blue folder, before puckering his brow and calling to House.

"Made-Up Guy?" he asked incredulously. "We're diagnosing a guy you made up?"

"No cases this morning," he answered as he hooked his computer chair with his cane, pulling it into the differential room. Plopping himself down, he tossed Chase the whiteboard marker. "So, get writing symptoms. Go."

PALE SKIN

DELAYED GROWTH

ANEMIA

POOR EYESIGHT

LIVER/KIDNEY DAMAGE

"That's your handwriting? Gee, remind me to only ask the person with handwriting that looks like that of a girl in junior high."

"Hey!" Cameron protested lightly, not really offended. House blinked at her.

"What? I was talking about Foreman," he said. Foreman rolled his eyes in the back of the differential room. "Chase's writing will do for now."

"It's sickle cell disease," Chase said. "It accounts for all of the symptoms."

"Did you cheat?" he demanded, then yawned. "Go test for it."

"Oh, blast," Cameron said sarcastically. "Too bad Mr Made-Up is _made-up_."

"You could've said something more witty," House retorted. "Chase wins this round. OK, new symptoms, new fake disease..." He waited while Chase erased the board of symptoms and wrote the names of all three fellows, putting a tally beneath his own.

"What?" he said in response to the glare Foreman sent him. "If we're going to play a game we need to keep score."

"Yeah, _dude, _hate the game, not the player. I think that's wrong." House tapped his cane, thinking of a test for his ducklings. "Difficulty breathing. Go."

"One symptom?" Foreman said. "That's all we get?"

"I'll be more detailed. One day, Johnny came into the clinic, gasping for breath. Dr Greg saw the kid unable to breathe, and, boy-oh-boy, did he feel bad for little Johnny. Oxygen is so important in a man's life, after all. So he told his team of silly doctors, 'he can't breathe'—"

"Allergic reaction," Chase said.

"You lose," House said. "Do you think the ER didn't try epinephrine?"

"You said he came to the clinic," the younger pointed out. "Which means he could breath well enough that he didn't need 911. No ER, no respiratory emergency. Allergic reaction causing swelling of esophagus."

"You still lose. A for effort, though. Foreman?"

"Asthma attack," he guessed.

"You lose. Cameron?"

"What was his heart rate?"

"Hey, we didn't get that as a symptom!" Chase complained.

"It'd be on his chart. You and Foreman just didn't look. Fast."

"Fast?" she repeated skeptically. "You can do better than that."

"Too tired. Screw it."

"Anxiety attack," she said, rolling her eyes. "He was panicked and came to clinic because he felt like his heart and lungs would explode."

"Ding-ding-ding!" House said. "Chase, give the woman a tally-mark."

"Why are you tired, House?" Cameron asked as he thought up new symptoms. "You look kinda pale. Flu?" He shook his head, seeing Wilson heading up the hall.

"I'm not sick. Tell Wilson to stop fussing."

"Right," she hummed. He spun his cane idly.

"Patient has—" House stopped as Wilson entered the room. "What's up?"

"Are you busy?"

"Playing a game with the kids, honey, what do you need?"

"You, for a sec. Early presentation of Alzheimer's—"

"Boring. My game's more fun."

"—in a fourteen year old girl. She... House, you're bleeding!"

"What? Where?" He looked down at himself, still spinning his cane. He looked fine.

"Nose," Wilson said, crossing the room to pass House some tissues from the bookshelf behind him. The older doctor raised a hand to his face, swearing at the amount of blood he found there. How didn't he notice that? "Why are you bleeding? What did you take?"

"Nothing this time," House answered honestly.

Minutes ticked by. He could feel the wetness on his shirt now, despite the dozen soaked tissues held to his face by his best friend, and he was getting very creeped. His ducklings had ran to get the needed medical things to stop the bleeding. Or to tell Cuddy he had been snorting cocaine, not that he had. Maybe both.

"Shit!" he said, yanking away from Wilson's tissue-armed hand. He lurched to the shelf, grabbing some Kleenex for himself, pressing it to his ear.

"Your ear too?" Wilson asked, leaping up to follow his friend. "Why haven't you clotted? This is getting ridiculous!"

"I'm getting lightheaded," House gasped, swaying, trying to balance on his shaky left leg. He grabbed Wilson's shoulder, trying to make the room stop spinning. "I need to sit..."

* * *

"He passed out?" Cuddy asked, leaning her fists on her desk as she quirked an eyebrow. "And you ran a tox-screen?"

"Yes," Cameron answered, handing her a lab report. "Twice. He hasn't been doing anything, let alone something that would cause random bleeding out of every orifice. His BP is ninety over sixty, his heart rate is one-eighty-five. He weighed in at one-twenty."

"One hundred and twenty _pounds_?" Cuddy demanded, snatching the file from the other woman.

"No, British stones," she said dryly. "I thought one-twenty was light, even for someone who lives off of Wilson's stolen lunches and Chinese take-out."

"Maybe the weight isn't a symptom... Maybe he's just malnourished because he forgets to eat," Cuddy said, disbelieving the numbers in the file. "I wouldn't put it that far out of the ball park. He's always been very thin, even when we were in college."

"Maybe. But something's wrong. I put him in room three-nineteen," Cameron said, taking the offered file and offered information and leaving.

* * *

"OK," Chase said, pacing in front of the whiteboard over three hours after House was admitted into the hospital. "What does this add up to?"

RAPID HEART RATE

LOW BP

liver damage

FATIGUE

WEIGHT LOSS?

BLEEDING

HIGH WHITE COUNT - LOW RED & PLATELET

"Not a lot... White count leads to infection? Maybe an autoimmune attacking his heart or liver, even his marrow—"

"Doesn't fit the weight loss," Foreman said, shooting down Cameron's idea.

"That has a question mark behind it because we don't know if that's 'Illness X' or the fact that House's fridge only has a bottle of mustard and a loaf of stale bread in it," Wilson threw in.

"Let's give him the white board," Chase suggested. "It's been a day, and we're no closer to anything resembling a diagnosis—"

"Ask him to diagnose himself? Chase, that's brash—"

"He hates it when people take care of him," Wilson interrupted. "He'd probably find it hysterical."

"And then he can laugh and call us idiots," Chase continued. "Make him feel better. It's perfect."

"Let's give it another try. One day," Cameron argued, "House won't be here to turn to, we should practice doing this ourselves while we have his safety net."

"OK... Let's look at his blood work. What do we have there?" Wilson asked, rubbing his face.

Foreman shrugged, reading out the lab. "His WBC is sky-high, while his red cells and his platelets are way down. It points to infection because of the whites, but the low everything else means a blood disorder."

"Hemophilia is ruled out automatically for two reasons; he would've died playing lacrosse years ago, and his infarction was caused by a clot, meaning he _can_ clot. Or should be able to," Chase continued, tapping the whiteboard marker. "What else makes him completely unable to clot when randomly bleeding from the ear and nose?"

"Von Willenbrand Disease? Explains the random bleeding and the trouble clotting," Cameron suggested. Wilson shook his head.

"Doesn't fit the low BP or the rapid heart rate. Everything except those two _might_ be explained by the Vicodin, even the liver," he said.

"He would've had the severe side-effects years ago," Chase dismissed without moving his gaze from the whiteboard. "Besides, Vicodin causes a lowered heart rate, not one at one-eighty-five. Drug abuse doesn't fit since he dropped a clean tox-screen. Glanzmann's thrombasthenia causes bleeding and increased heart rate. Maybe his low BP is a response to dietary problems, like the weight loss. Fatigue and liver are results of the Vicodin."

When no one objected to that, he stood. "I'll run the test."

* * *

"It's not Glanzmann's," House told him as he swiped his arm with an alcohol swab. "Doesn't fit the low BP, liver or the fatigue."

"Vicodin," Chase said, uncapping the syringe.

"Wouldn't cause it so suddenly," House said, not satisfied. "And my weight wouldn't have dropped. I've been living off of Chinese and pizza since college. I'd have died ages ago if that was the cause of the weight loss."

"Well, it's the best we've got, so unless you have a seizure or something we'll wait for the test results," he said, half listening. He pulled the needle away, applying pressure to the wound immediately, afraid of House's low platelet count.

"Doesn't fit..." he muttered again, not paying attention. "Maybe—" He stopped suddenly.

"House?" Chase asked, concerned. "You alright?"

"Gonna be sick, pass the can," House grunted, shifting his weight and covering his mouth with his hand. Chase rolled his chair to the door, where the garbage can was, wondering if the nausea was the result of the cafeteria chicken or a symptom.

He was too slow to get to House before the older man retched. Chase stood, going to his boss as fast as he could. Something was wrong.

"See?" House panted, still leant over the bar of his hospital bed. "Glanzmann's doesn't cause me to vomit blood."

"What does?" Chase asked, pushing him up. House winced as Chase pressed on his left shoulder.

"I have no idea."

* * *

RAPID HEART RATE

LOW BP

LIVER DAMAGE

WEIGHT LOSS

FATIGUE

BLEEDING

HIGH WHITE COUNT - LOW RED & PLATELET

SHOULDER PAIN

VOMITING BLOOD

"OK," Wilson said, pacing. "So we're back to square one."

"Square two," Chase said. "We know what it's not. That's something."

"Not much of a something," Cameron said. She sighed. All four doctors stared at the board. "Is it time to take House his own case file?"

"I think so," Foreman murmured. "As humiliating as that will be."

They rolled the whiteboard down the hall and into the next wing. House looked very pale in his bed, deep circles beneath his eyes, an equally deep bruise on his arm from where Chase had taken blood. He was asleep, finally.

He didn't look invincible, like he did riding his motorcycle with his cane sticking out of his backpack. He didn't even mock them as he stared at the board after Wilson shook him awake. He did mock them as he shot down the ideas of his ducklings; everything from hemophilia to some of the symptoms being caused by Vicodin abuse.

"What if..." he began slowly after a long silence. "What if some of these are a symptom of a symptom? Bloody vomit, heart rate and BP can all be caused by bleeding esophageal varices. Shoulder pain and fatigue can mean an enlarged spleen."

"OK, but there's still nothing that accounts for all of these—" Chase began, cut off by House.

"Idiopathic myelofibrosis," House said, a trace of sadness in his voice.

"Oh, god, House," Wilson began. "No, it can't be!"

"It fits, Wilson," the older doctor responded. "Fits best out of everything. Do a blood test and an MRI to confirm."

"Why an MRI?" Wilson asked. "You think it's that advanced?"

"I'm vomiting blood, aren't I? Probably have legions in my marrow..."

"Wait," Chase said. "What do we think he has?"

"Myelofibrosis is scarring of the bone marrow causing immature or mutated cells, messing with counts and causing bleeding and anemia. Idiopathic is just our way of saying House has the cancer without the scarring caused by a previous marrow issue, just a random fluke," Wilson explained.

"Well, it's only been four days," Cameron said hurriedly. "We caught it early, treatment—"

"Is non-existent, Cameron," Wilson said. "It's basis is to make the patient comfortable and prevent complications like his liver failing or his heart exploding."

"I've probably got five to ten years, assuming I'm right. Go run your tests, kiddies," House said, none of his usual vehemence in his dismissal. The doctors left nonetheless, the blood Chase had drawn two days ago still down in the lab.

"I'm sorry, House," he murmured, moving to sit on the bed next to his best friend of so long.

"Yeah, me too."

* * *

Wilson sat in House's favorite bar nearly four years later. A framed picture of House, on Hallowe'en two years ago, dressed up as Indiana Jones wIth his cane jacked over his shoulder, sat on the mantle of the lit fireplace, beside it his motorcycle helmet and his cane.

The bar buzzed with other doctors from House's earlier jobs, including some people who had only known him for a few weeks before he was fired from other hospitals. A couple of his university professors had heard of his death and had come.

The room was full of patrons, all there to mourn the loss of the medical maverick Dr. Gregory House. His mother had died in February of that year, and John House had refused to come to his son's funeral.

Cameron sat on the bar stool beside Wilson, patting his knee and offering a sad smile. "How are you doing?" she asked him. He patted her hand, shrugging.

"I'm alright. He'd be calling me a girl for being so emotional, but no, I'm OK," he answered with a sigh. "How 'bout you?"

"Better than Chase, that's for sure. He's... Well, you know how those two were, close but constantly... I don't know. He'll be OK," she answered, looking over at Chase, sitting in a booth in the corner, absently passing his finger through the small flame of the tea candle.

"Eventually, we all will," she said.

"You should be getting back to him. He needs you," Wilson said. "Besides, House left instructions on my computer. I'm supposed to play some stuff off his iPod." He pulled the device out of his coat pocket, the scuffed Touch containing more of House's personality than even his record and CD collection; where he could organize his music into playlists, into more meaningful categories than alphabetical by artist then album.

"He left you his _iPod?_" Cameron asked, amazed. House never let anyone near his iPod, it was his music, his zone. Cameron leant over to glance at the playlist Wilson was pointing at. "Exit?" she asked.

"Yep. I dunno what's in it, the instructions with his pass-code told me not to look, but to play it through the projector in his closet," he explained, hitting the sleep button on the device and returning it to his pocket. "I assume he left a video or something to remind us of him."

"I can't wait," she said, standing.

"I'll play it soon," Wilson promised. He left his seat as well, moving to Cuddy, talking with lady who House had diagnosed with, funnily enough, Wilson's disease, saving her from the schizophrenic-like effects of the untreated illness. She turned to him as the woman grabbed her purse, ready to leave.

"Wilson, hey," Cuddy said, giving him a quick hug. Her mascara was a little smudged, her eyes a tad bit red. "How are you?"

"OK. Could you help me set up the projector?" She nodded, placing down her drink. Minutes later, the iPod was hooked up to Cuddy's Mac, projector to Mac, the playlist projected onto the pulled-down blinds.

A video, one Wilson instantly recognized, began playing. The bar fell into a hushed silence, watching.

_House sat on the couch, Wilson held the small camcorder that was responsible for the video, both were laughing, clearly a bit tipsy, but nowhere near drunk. _

"_Play a song," Wilson demanded. "Play a song."_

"_No," House said, shaking his head. "I don't generally play for other people."_

"_Good. I'm not asking you to play for other people," Wilson said, "I'm asking you to play for me."_

_House stood without further argument. He walked, his limp pronounced, to the corner that held his instruments, saying, "Piano or guitar?"_

"_Piano. I've heard you play guitar tons of times, never the piano."_

_House sat at the bench, tapping out Fur Elise while he thought. "What should I play?"_

"_I dunno," he answered, moving to stand in front of the piano, aiming the camera right at House. He glared at the camera, his blue eyes standing out in the paleness of his face, his scruffy beard adorning his thin, squared jaw. _

_He began to play, just a few notes of Landed by Ben Folds, and the video faded out, to black._

_Greg House _

_1959 - whenever this video ends up being played._

_The video shifted to a short slideshow, the album version of Landed picking up where House left off, right where the lyrics began._

_A series of shots, taken from a mall's photo booth with Wilson. He looked very somber (Wilson knew it was just after his first divorce, House was trying to cheer him up), while House was making faces that really should've been medically impossible. By the end of the four photos, Wilson was laughing, House licking his smiling face from jaw to ear. A picture of House and Stacy in their vacation in Toronto, Canada, outside the Hockey Hall of Fame. Wilson had never seen the photo before, a pre-infarction House smiling at the camera, his arms wrapped around Stacy's black parka-ed waist, his chin on her shoulder. _

_The next picture showed House in the hospital, a heavily bandaged leg propped up on a pillow to reduce obvious swelling, flipping off the camera person. A hint of sadness in his eyes told Wilson the picture had been taken after Stacy—repulsed by the hole in the leg and House's willingness to forgive her when she couldn't forgive herself—left him about a week or so after the diagnosis. _

_A few pictures of Cuddy; one of what House claimed was his favorite sweater (a burgundy one that was admittedly a bit tight) and one of her glaring at him, a red dot from House's laser pointer on her forehead. _

_Pictures of Cameron and Chase together at Chase's twenty-ninth birthday party, a few with Foreman with them at the same party. A picture of House surrounded by boxes; on the floor of his apartment trying to assemble his XBox and his new TV. _

_House and Wilson playing Rock-Band with Wilson's seven year old niece and ten year old nephew, probably the only children to ever see the inside of House's apartment. The song was about halfway done when it shifted to a video, another Wilson had made, Chase and House playing Guitar Hero in his office on the TV he'd stolen from the doctors lounge. _

"_I've been paged, this isn't fair!" Chase said, trying to play Through the Fire and Flames while reading his pager, clipped to his scrubs. _

"_Power-Up: Lefty Flip, take that!" House responded, jerking his guitar into the air. The camera shook as Wilson's laugh sounded. _

_The video shifted, and this time it was very obviously House filming. He was across the hall from the glass doors of Cuddy's office, probably leaning against the nurses' station. Cuddy was doing paperwork, looking down. House zoomed in with the camera, right to her cleavage. _

_You could hear House chuckling. "I'm gonna miss that view," he said, just loud enough for the camera's mike to pick him up. Cuddy picked up her head to stretch her neck, and spotted House. She glared, standing to force him back into the clinic._

"_Shit, she sees me, she saw me!" House said, lowering the camera to his sneakered feet, shuffling away. "How do I turn this thing off?" The screen went black a moment later, opening again to a scene the team members remembered too well. House was filming a surgery._

"_House, stop filming this," Cameron ordered through her surgical mask as Chase clamped something inside some woman's stomach. House raised the camera's gaze, looking at her._

"_Why? This is so cool!"_

"_House!" she reprimanded._

"_Come on, like she's gonna mind. I'm saving her life," he said, flipping the camera around to face him. "I'm saving her life!" he cried dramatically._

_The video shifted once again, to a very close-up shot of House; he was obviously trying to figure out if the camera was recording or not. _

"_Hey everybody," he said, sitting on the low coffee table in his apartment. He was wearing a Goo Goo Dolls t-shirt, of their 2007 album, Let Love In. His patented sneakers stared at Wilson from the bottom of the screen._

"_Either Wilson is snooping in my iTunes, or I'm dead," he said, rubbing his bad leg absently through his jeans. "I bet you're at the memorial now, and I'll bet Wilson isn't as drunk as he'd like to be. I don't really have anything to say, not much to say since I probably say it everyday, very rudely. So, here's my last message to you guys." He took a deep breath, continuing with his messages slowly, sometimes smoothly and sometimes struggling to find the right words._

"_Cuddy, the bright side is you don't have to make me do clinic duty anymore. Seriously though, I have a gift for you at my apartment, on the top shelf on the closet. Cameron, don't toughen up. Keep being the over-emotional girl that you are. Chase, don't be so afraid of breaking rules. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." _

"_Leaves you wide open, I guess," House laughed. "You'll balance out too-serious Foreman on the team after I'm gone. Speaking of Foreman, don't steal anymore cars. If you want the gifts I left for the team, pick the lock on my desk drawer. _

"_If my dad showed up, I guess I'll say to him that I miss Mum too. I'll say hi to her for him, if I see her. He handled losing her well. An equally unlikely candidate for attendance would be my lovely ex, Stacy the Constitutional Lawyer. I missed waking up with you there to make fun of for snoring each morning. I missed having you laugh about it._

"_Wilson, the locked playlist in my iTunes has your gift in it. The password is 'ex-Mrs Wilson', with spaces." House looked away from the camera, thinking. "Don't miss me too much, guys. Remember that I was a misanthropic ass, and don't cloud your memories with how _nice_ I was."_

_He smiled sadly. "Sorry to leave you guys so soon, and so undramatically. Cancer, pft. Hardly worthy of me. Should've suffocated in a orgy, or something, don't you think?" _

_House leaned up to the camera, and shut it off. The screen went black. Music began playing, but no more images showed up. _

"_I'm staring out into the night. Tryin' to hide the pain," sang the artist, who Wilson recognized as Chris Daughtry. "Going to the place where love and feelin' good don't cost a thing. And the pain you feel's a different kind of pain. I'm goin' home, to a place where I belong. Where your love has always been enough for me. Not runnin' from. No, I think you got me all wrong. I don't regret this life you chose for me. But these places and these faces are getting old. So I'm going home."_

Wilson left the music to play.


End file.
